Madam Speaker, I commend my colleague from the Liberal Party for his innovation and initiatives in his riding. It is a very important thing to do. Canadian youth are looking for leadership in their political leaders in pursuing that.
However, let us talk about taxes for a moment. There have been 37 tax increases and I will give a couple of examples. The last was the CPP increase which is going to remove $10 billion from the pockets of Canadians and is going to cost jobs, jobs, jobs.
Second, the increased gasoline taxes have spread across to all Canadians. Those who hurt the most are those who are poorest because they are on fixed incomes.
I also raise the cold, hard salient fact that our country has been burdened by the highest, consistent level of unemployment at10 per cent since the government was elected. Those are facts and that is the state of affairs of our economy.
I am sure the hon. member goes into his riding to speak to businessmen. He cannot get a message that is different from what the rest of us hear. They must tell him that their greatest restriction in their ability to be competitive is the taxation levels that are crushing the daylights out of them. The government has done nothing about it.
One need not look any further than at the underground economy which is growing by leaps and bounds. Members do not have to take my word for it. They can go into their own ridings to find out. It is the palpable, factual evidence that we have to demonstrate the economic proposals of the government have not improved our economy but have crushed it.